Otto Heinrich I of Gemmingen-Hornberg

Otto Heinrich I. Baron of Gemmingen zu Hornberg (born October 29, 1727 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † February 3, 1790 in Hoffenheim ) belonged to the family of the Lords of Gemmingen , was a judge at the Imperial Court of Justice in Wetzlar and a privy councilor with the rank of general field master .

Life

Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen was born in 1727 as the seventh of eight children of Colonel Eberhard von Gemmingen-Hornberg (Colonel) and his wife Anna Clara von Zyllenhard . Since his father took part in the Italian campaign and his wife accompanied him, from 1730 he lived with his siblings with an uncle in Heilbronn . From 1736 he attended the pedagogy in Halle . He showed a lot of inclination for the military, but his father was against this career and gave him the hands of his uncle Ludwig in Celle . The latter finally sent him to Göttingen to study . He later became an auditor in Celle and in 1745 extraordinary court and chancellery advisor. In 1751 he became a councilor and in 1752 an assessor at the imperial court in Wetzlar. On January 22, 1765, Emperor Franz I appointed him to the Real Privy Council , with the rank immediately after the General Field Master Duke of Aremberg , with the words: ... he (Gemmingen) belongs to an ancient, best-deserved family in terms of the imperial monastery, which is among the Dynasties belong and among other things at the beginning of the 16th century counted an elector in Mainz, a prince of Augsburg and a prince of Eichstätt and ... all of which were constantly proven against the very same glorious ancestors in the Holy Roman Empire and the most illustrious ore house in Austria Loyalty and devotion to their immortal fame have achieved exceptional merits.

Hoffenheim Castle, built in 1781 under Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen

In Wetzlar he met Countess Maria Elisabetha von Virmont, née Countess von Nesselrode , the widow of Judge Ambrosius Franz, Countess of Virmont and Bretzenheim , who died in 1744 , with whom he married and converted to Catholicism. Because of the absence of his father and his brother due to wars, he stopped working in Wetzlar and took care of the management of the family property. During this time he lived temporarily in Rappenau , Wimpfen and Hoffenheim, which he bought in 1771. In 1781 he had Hoffenheim Castle built.

After a long time, Otto Heinrich I seemed to have been a stroke of luck for the people of Hoffenheim. Because in the Hoffenheim homeland book, church councilor Heinrich Neu writes: “With Otto Heinrich I von Gemmingen, the community got a master for the first time, for whom it meant not only a commercial object but a moral task. He is soon recognized with praise for promoting the good of the community in every way; It was in the interests of agriculture when he ordered, for example, that every citizen should deliver 10 sparrow heads. Since the field thefts increased, it was decreed: Every citizen who was convicted of a field theft is punished for the first time with loss of civil rights, if repeated with expulsion from the place and with loss of civil rights. Furthermore, young boys who were found on the street after 10 o'clock in the night should be punished for the first time with arrest and the second time with stick strokes. "

On February 3, 1790 he died of biliary fever in Hoffenheim and was buried there. His tomb is no longer preserved, but there is still an epitaph for Otto Heinrich in the Protestant parish church in Hoffenheim , which his descendants had erected.

family

His first marriage was to Maria Elisabetha von Virmont, born von Nesselrode († 1774). After her death, he married Clara Ludovika von Gemmingen (* 1753 in Luxembourg ; † November 6, 1814 in Hoffenheim), the daughter of his brother Sigmund (1724-1806).

Progeny:

• Otto Heinrich (1755–1836) ⚭ Countess Charlotte von Sickingen (1756–1826)
• Sigmund Eberhard (1779–1809), was "stupid and dumb" after an accident in childhood
• Henriette (1780–1824) ⚭ Johann Karl Friedrich von Reischach
• Franziska (1782–1861) ⚭ Johann Karl Friedrich von Reischach (2nd marriage after the death of Henriette)

literature

• Hartmut Riehl: Two unknown Gemmingen monuments in the Protestant parish church of Hoffenheim. In: Kraichgau. Contributions to landscape and local research. Edited by the Heimatverein Kraichgau . Volume 20/2007, pp. 223-235, ISBN 3-921214-35-1 .
• Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig Stocker : Family Chronicle of the Barons of Gemmingen , Heidelberg 1895, pp. 285–288.